Hello Wyrmrest! Would you like to hear about my characters?
So I am been contemplating making a thread about this topic as I have had to make a few reports lately and I am making that thread here because I feel more comfortable speaking to my home server and those on this forum.
So in the majority of responses I have gotten from Game Masters, nearly all of them had said I should you the in-game function. However, when I have done this I have not seen the option to report another player for harassment.
In chat I get to select a reason which is either âInappropriate communicationâ or âInappropriate name.â
Right clicking on their player frame allows for three reasons to be picked; âInappropriate name,â âCheating,â and âGameplay Sabotage.â
None of these apply to the type of harassment I have had to report, which has been ongoing harassment & Zone Area Disruption, and it perplexes me that the Game Master keep telling me to report in that manner.
So far I have been making tickets with customer service which is frustrating to find. I may have to make a bookmark on my browser if this keeps up.
I have asked friends but no one really gets why I keep getting told to use the in-game reporting system rather than making a ticket. Is this just a standard thing? I am making these correct type of reports, right? What say you, Wyrmrest?
I could see Zone Area Disruption being something that could fall under the âGameplay Sabotageâ category through the right-click report options, though there does also seem to be a ticket category. Ongoing harassment, though, is something their support website says to create tickets for, so itâs odd that theyâre telling you otherwise.
There have been a few spikes of very high ticket volume lately, though I donât know what the state of the ticket queue is like right now. Maybe the GMs are overworked and not reading as carefully as they should.
When you make the harassment tickets, are you using the In-Game Issues > Report a Player > Ongoing Harassment path? I assume so, but just to check.
So I can say that my tickets have waited about 2 weeks each. The GMs have apologized that it took so long to get to this.
Another one I had more recently said itâs wait time was 1 day 22 hours.
When I hit report a player it takes me to a search for it and that took me to an article (Article ID: 99842) which says to use the in-game options and select the appropriate option.
They want you to use the ingame reporting function because it âsupposedlyâ gives cs a point of reference on the player youâre submitting a ticket on. Iâve had this pop up when Iâve had to report people for harassment too, and I think thatâs the gist of it from what I remember being told? Like they can see better into what the player was doing at the time and connect it to what youâre reporting in the ticket vs having to go sifting for it.
Reporting ingame, however, is something Iâve repeatedly responded to CS about in tickets as being difficult to do as they say or expect, because of the limited options, and the ways the offending player can get around this. (Iâm not saying those expressly bc players that go out of their way to harass others ingame can quite frankly pound sand)
Iâve had people and I think at least one CS on occasion say to report ingame with whatâs closest and leave info to help, so hopefully that helps? I do agree that zone disruption falls under gameplay sabotage and is probably your best bet if someoneâs abusing toys etc. then make a ticket and refer to that somewhere in the ticket.
I think they need to expand those options because, quite frankly, they suck. Itâs obnoxious.
The funny thing is that my guild and myself have also tried to make reports in game as well as tickets. With the incident at SC last month we hoped the automated system would get so many reports that it would give a temp ban to the offenders. That didnât happen.
Overall it is really frustrating.
After my recent experiences, it feels like Blizz doesnât really intend to enforce the social contract and would rather we all ignore the offenders, even though the offenders have ways to harass others while being on ignore, and allow those offenders to remain in the game. To me, that doesnât really seem like it will be good for the community.
They need to add âHarassment,â as well as âInappropriate addon usageâ to their report function. Them deferring to âuse the in-game functionâ doesnât work when none of the options work for what you need to report.
They really do. Iâve been saying so too since at least end of bfa through slands, and I had hoped the revamped reporting system would include it, but i guess it needs more eyes on it and voices behind it to see real improvement.
Also side note, for them trying to make a change with regards to harassment, itâs whack that you cannot clearly state you are being harassed without the tickets being automated.
also the amount of sexually explicit profiles/even public roleplay stuff I didnât ask to be a part of, it makes me hrrm.
If I understand right, youâve submitted a couple uncategorized tickets but not found the Ongoing Harassment ticket category, right?
Thereâs a frustratingly unclear different thing you need to do to get to the place to submit a ticket under this category rather than just being given help articles for it.
I dont know if this will help at all, but from my experiences, if you reply AT ALL to the person that is harassing you, Blizzard will throw out your report.
Could just be bad luck on my part. Either way, its annoying. But something to maybe keep in mind.
I hope who ever is bothering you guys can grow up a little bit⊠or at least have something else to spend their time doing.
The link works! Thank you. I am just going to bookmark this just in case. It is beyond ridiculous how difficult it can be to get to that point.
This is something I have had to advise my guild against. Not because they want to argue or anything but because one we had an alt stalker stalking our guild for the last two years. I have had to screen every unfamiliar character that approaches. Personally I think itâs that Blizz hasnât taken our reports seriously enough to give out punishments but who knows. They donât tell us. As for that player, I think she got reported by someone and actually got some sort of punishment.
Thank you. Me too. With Dragonflight bringing people back to the game, there are going to be a few bad apples that will decide to pull shennigans for whatever reason.
In addition to the guidance youâve received so far, Iâd suggest just using the cheating category to report people like this. I used to use that category all the time back before the report system was revamped. Once things get to a certain point, it doesnât matter what the category is so long as the report gets some eyes on it. At that point, the teams reviewing reports will do what they will with it and/or direct it to the proper team.
It kinda sucks that youâll never really know if action was taken or not. I feel like disciplinary results are generally not revealed so that bad-faith reports arenât encouraged. But if I were you, Iâd open those tickets under the link to ongoing harassment and use the cheating category if game masters insist you use the in-game reporting feature. Nothing to lose by doing it really.
I went ahead and just booked marked it. I really donât want to make this a thing but I canât help what others do. In the past we have screenshotted and ignored. That really only led to more harassment and stress. Going to screenshot and report as we have been. Something will happen eventually.
Edit: On that note, I am going to add my voice to those wishing to see the reporting system improved upon. It needs it.
I had to deal with in-game harassment last year and the system was just as difficult and poor then as it is now for you, and I am sorry youâve had to deal with this.
Someone above already gave you the link to report it through tickets, but I want to share a couple things that helped me:
Putting them on ignore did not help. At all. It meant I had no chat to report (not that they ever really verbalized anything) and Blizzard threw up their hands and said ânothing can be done, just keep ignoring themâ.
I needed to take and submit screenshots of them talking to me (in that case it was an in-game letter) and making threats/accusations before Blizzard agreed to do anything.
Harassing you by using an in-game toy on you repeatedly to circumvent the ignore function did not seem to count as harassment to the blues I spoke to back then.
I also had to:
Make sure not to reply/contact them at all.
Continually send tickets with all of the screenshots and any new ones, and explicitly provide the ticket numbers of previous tickets about the same issue.
I wish you and your guild all the best, and I am sorry this is happening.
Thank you for sharing your tips. I am also sorry you had to deal with that. I absolutely hate it. It still feels like Blizz doesnât want to police their game. I really hoped that would change when the social contract came out but I wasnât going to hold my breath. Thankfully I didnât. The community has had to police itself and might continue to do so.
We had an incident last month where some Pvp bros did this at Story Circle. Some of us reported them with screenshots. I havenât seen them around so I think they may have gotten some form of punishment. Outside a battleground too.
Itâs good to see that Blizzard has YouTube thumbnail laser eyes when people go to the bathroom for too long during an alterac valley in classic wow, while ongoing harassment campaigns against RPers go completely unpunished
As someone who had to contact a friend who was a GM for Blizz back when Wrath was current, for an ongoing harassment issue (someone decided to post my MySpace profile in Trade, because they found out I was the opposite gender and I refused to talk to them, at which point they started camping my Rogue when I was out trying to level) - use the form a prior person linked. Send them screenshots of the issues and people involved, with timestamps. Include server names, tell them that you have put these people on ignore, and that they continue to harass you (which falls under âevading the ignore functionâ).
Basically what other people have said - even if you have to report it under something else, note it in the comments what itâs for. Getting eyes on it, will allow them to have in-game logs with the timestamps, and they can then forward it to the appropriate people. Theyâre hesitant to ban people because a banned account makes no money, but if itâs something severe enough (ongoing harassment, IRL harassment, things that completely disrupt your game play), then they will 100% do something about it. Thereâs a huge ticket load right now, so it might take them a little while to get to it (they laid off a lot of employees over the last few years - both of my GM friends were part of the 300+ person layoff a few years ago :< ), so donât get discouraged, donât interact with them. Just keep putting them on ignore, keep reporting (you can put them on ignore and still report them if theyâre spamming toys on you/jumping around near you and other people are complaining about commentary theyâre making - it still shows up as a log, and should still be reportable, even if you canât personally see it).
Delt with the same thing for literal years from someone, I opened ticket after ticket after ticket. People above have given good advice but in my experience, the person who harassed me for years did so until they slipped up one year and made a thinly veiled tongue-in-cheek death threat to me and my brother.
WHOOPSY Blizzard did NOT like that!
Long story short, they were perma banned after THAT report because Blizzard protects their assets and liability. Sadly, much like in the real world, law\rule enforcement is less on prevention and more on retaliation to something being broken.
That said, one of two things is going to happen for you:
1- The harasser moves on, MAYBE gets a time-out for using a no no word.
2- The harasser gets actioned after goofing up and using a no no word.
Unfortunately, the reality is that Blizzard looks at words, not context.